Aide in shock after seeing Vince Cable without mask

A junior parliamentary aide was last night rushed to the trauma unit of a central London hospital after accidentally catching a glimpse of Trade Secretary Vince Cable without the wax prosthetic mask which allows him to walk among the living.

Sophie Herriot, 26 a poor but honest Cambridge undergraduate working in Mr Cable’s private parliamentary office said from her hospital bed last night: “I was just preparing some briefing notes for Mr Cable for the Joint Trade Committee session on Wednesday when I turned and looked towards the door of his office”.

Her face pale as though tortured with ineffable nightmares, Miss Herriot struggled to continue “I heard strange unearthly music, like the howling of sprits in torment. A gibbous green glow and trailing tendrils of mist seemed to creep from beneath the door.”

Clasping her hands to her bosom and sniffing gratefully from the proffered smelling salts she went on “Taking my courage I pushed upon the door, which yielded to reveal a vision from the nethermost circle of Hades! There, seated at a mighty organ keyboard was the unmistakable form of Mr Cable, a hammer in each hand, striking at the keys of the organ where, taped to each key, was a single week old kitten! “

“As the helpless screams of the kittens (each mewling out a different note of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue) mixed with the diabolical eldritch laughter of Mr Cable, I approached him. And then, he turned and I , poor soul that I am, beheld the true face of Vince Cable!!”

Miss Herriot then collapsed into helpless sobs before recovering her composure sufficiently to say “I mean, he’s normally so nice. He does ballroom dancing and everything, doesn’t he? “

A senior Liberal Democrat source confirmed that Mr Cable has retired to his ancestral home in Yorkshire where he was confined to the East Wing, although local residents report that upon a moonless night can be heard the sounds of a ghostly bossa nova mewled by terrified kittens and a barely human voice screaming “Forgive Me! Dear God Forgive me!” into the unheeding night sky.